Microsoft agrees to provide browser selection window to new Windows users

According to foreign media reports, Mozilla's latest statistics show that for nearly 15 months, as Microsoft failed to provide Windows 7 Service Pack 1 users with a browser selection window as required by the administration of Justice, Firefox's daily average download fell by 63%, Cumulative loss of 6 million-9 million downloads.

In a settlement with the European Union over antitrust cases, Microsoft agreed to provide browser selection windows to new Windows users so they could decide whether to install IE or other browsers. Microsoft should have started providing browser selection windows to new and existing Windows users since December 2009. However, it did not add this window to Windows 7 SP1 when it was released in February 2011. Later, until someone complained to the antitrust agency of the European Commission (European Commission), Microsoft added the Selection window.

Harvey Anderson, a general counsel and vice president of business and Commerce at Mozilla, said in a blog post that the lack of Windows 7 browser selection windows had a huge impact on Firefox.

"During this time, Firefox lost 6 million-9 million downloads." "After Microsoft increased its selection window, Firefox's daily downloads increased by 150% to about 50,000 times," Anderson wrote. "he said. He added that Firefox's daily downloads fell 20,000 times during the absence of a browser selection window.

Mozilla is not the first company to discover that "browser selection windows affect the amount of browser downloads". The selection window shows the top five browsers in the home page, and other browsers need to scroll the slider to navigate. After Apple abandoned the Windows version of Safari browser, the unnamed competitor Maxthon was moved to the front page of the window, which greatly increased its download volume. "We've seen the increase in downloads. "Maxthon, a spokesman for the company, said Lewis Fein. But he did not say how big the increase was. Other browser vendors did not immediately comment on the impact of the browser selection window.

According to Mozilla Anderson, Microsoft's responsibility for the launch of its browser-selection window in 2009 was a remedial measure taken by the European Commission to address Microsoft's violations of European competition law.

The complaint against Microsoft eventually led the European Commission to write to Microsoft in Wednesday, condemning its failure to provide browser options to Windows 7 users. At that time, Microsoft said that the lack of browser selection window was the result of technical failure.

Anderson believes that Microsoft's mistakes have led to the loss of many new users to its rivals. "This technical failure has an impact on all browser vendors, reducing the amount of downloads available to other browsers and weakening the effectiveness of the remedial measures implemented by the European Commission in 2009." ”

To that end, the European Commission's fines for Microsoft could reach 10% of its global turnover. However, according to the European Commission, this figure is the maximum amount of fines stipulated by law and does not represent the actual amount of fines.